


Cheap and Nasty Time Travel

by bossxtweed



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, Mistaken Identity, missy audios, too many masters (audio)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/pseuds/bossxtweed
Summary: Coming back to the TARDIS after a long day of teaching at St. Luke's, the Doctor finds that Missy has brought an old friend home.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master & The Monk
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Cheap and Nasty Time Travel

The Doctor walks into his TARDIS,  _ expecting  _ to find it empty after a long day of teaching courses and holding office hours (he  _ hates _ having to deal with crying students), only to his surprise, there stand Missy and another woman.

"Er---hello…?" the Doctor stops in his tracks and turns toward Missy. "Have you got a  _ friend  _ now?"

"I'm---" the woman starts, extending a hand, but Missy cuts in front of her.

"This is the  _ Nun,"  _ Missy's eyes shine and a smirk forms on her lips. 

"Nun?" the Doctor repeats, staring between them. "You're---oh!" He snaps and points at her, saying, "you used to be the  _ Monk!" _

"No! I  _ never _ claimed that ti---"

"You  _ did,  _ though," Missy interjects. "You lived in an abbey  _ and _ a monastery at different points, remember? And Lydia  _ told me  _ about your prayers before you were sacrificed to that Crab God, so you can  _ leave off  _ with the ‘it was a  _ one-time thing  _ and I’m nae  _ actually  _ Catholic!’”

The Nun sighs. “I  _ thought  _ you were going to let them  _ kill me,  _ Missy, and who  _ else  _ was I supposed to pray to? Rassilon? Omega? I think not!”

“Wait,” the Doctor says, holding up a hand. “Crab God? Sacrifice?  _ What  _ happened?”

Missy avoids his gaze and turns towards the corridor, motioning for the Doctor and the Nun to follow her, and she silently leads them to one of the TARDIS kitchens, the one the Doctor had let her decorate. The walls are a deep purple, the cabinets black wood, the countertops smooth granite, and surrounding the dark blue table sit four 19th Century chairs with plush cushions.

“Crab god,” the Doctor repeats, looking between the two Time Ladies. “Would one of you care to explain?”

“I’m going to make tea,” Missy announces, still avoiding eye contact. “And  _ then,  _ maybe, we’ll go over what happened. In the meantime, why don’t the pair of you catch up? It’s been  _ millennia,  _ hasn’t it?”

The Doctor and the Nun sit in opposite chairs, neither wanting to speak first. He drums his fingers in a four-beat rhythm on the table while she picks agitatedly at her fingernails, revealing a small cross tattoo on the inside of her right wrist.

“The other nuns let you have that?” the Doctor teases. “Or did you get it in your last body, get an infection--”

Flushing, the Nun drops her arms to rest against her stomach and says, “no! I---I gave it to myself, using some of the  _ black market ink  _ we used to use, back in the Academy, only I did it wrong and well--” she gestures to herself. “Here I am!”

Standing now at the sink with a teapot in one hand, Missy snorts, and when the Nun snaps at her, she waves a dismissive hand and turns the water on full blast. Tea, tea, tea… she turns on the burner and sets the pot to boil before rummaging through the cabinets for three mugs: one, TARDIS blue; another, the very same shade of purple as the fabric of her dress; and the third, white with a cartoon drawing of a church on one side; and she sets each of them down on the counter before turning to lean against it, crossing her arms over her chest.

“What kind of tea would the two of you like? I’ve a headache, so a’m partial to  _ ginger,  _ m’self, but if either of you’d like something else…”

“I haven’t gotten any more classes today,” the Doctor replies, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “So it’ll only be a problem if  _ Nardole  _ stumbles upon us while we’re inebriated.”

The Nun quirks a brow. “Nardole? Who’s that?”

“He’s--” the Doctor starts, but Missy silences him with an angry tut.

“He’s the Doctor’s  _ babysitter,”  _ she spits, unhappily. “He’s  _ always  _ ruining our fun, saying, ‘no, you  _ can’t  _ go in the TARDIS or the  _ universe  _ will implode,’ and ‘why have you let her out? How can you trust a  _ monster  _ like her?’” she mimics Nardole’s accent as she talks and the Doctor can’t help but snort.

“You  _ really  _ don’t like him, do you?” the Doctor queries.

Missy shrugs and turns to fetch three tea bags, puts one in each of the mugs, and says, “you  _ know  _ how I feel about him, love, but I dinnae want to bring that up in front of  _ her,”  _ she motions behind her, jabbing the air in the Nun’s direction. 

“Right. Well.  _ Something  _ is wrong between the pair of you,” he stares between them for a long moment, frowning, before saying, “so. Back to the matter at hand:  _ crab god…” _

The pot squeals and Missy hastens to pour water into each of the mugs, wincing slightly as steam hits her in the face. “Well. It started, when? 16th Century?  _ I  _ needed a Time Traveler so I could raid their ship for parts, and imagine my surprise when  _ the King of England himself  _ showed up at my father’s doorstep!”

Quirking a brow, the Doctor asks, “father? Wh--”

Missy sets the blue mug down in front of the Doctor and gives the Nun the white one before settling down with her own purple mug, from which she takes a long sip before answering, “perception filter! I infiltrated a wealthy, childless family and passed myself off as their only daughter, and imagine my surprise when the Monk showed up!”

“I was  _ just  _ as surprised as she was, I assure you,” the Nun interjects. “But, we were almost  _ married,  _ then we were almost  _ executed,  _ and finally she abandoned me with a stripped TARDIS! I couldn’t go  _ anywhere!” _

The Doctor hums.

“Right, right. Fine!  _ Crab god,”  _ Missy says, rolling her eyes. “Well. The Monk fixed his ship somehow and snatched me up, putting me in some rather  _ weak  _ form of a prison, only then some  _ Ogrons  _ got both of us…”

“Ogrons?” The Doctor pinches the bridge of his nose and heaves a heavy sigh. “Should I even  _ ask…?” _

“You know how the Master is!” the Nun snaps, leaning forward and wrapping her hands around her mug. “They used the Ogrons to try and destroy the Daleks, only they never  _ paid  _ the damned creatures for their services, so they abducted us as part of their revenge.”

“They saw the pair of us back when she looked like a middle-aged white man,” Missy explains, “and since they had known me in one of my masculine visages, they just  _ assumed  _ that the Monk was  _ me,  _ and I played along because their understanding of gender follows a  _ very  _ strict binary and they simply  _ couldn’t  _ comprehend our species’ gender fluidity.”

The Doctor takes a sip of tea and nods. “I see. Well, you still haven’t gotten to the---”

_ “Crab god,”  _ the Time Ladies finish. 

“Yes. Right. Getting to that,” Missy leans back in her chair, kicking her kitten heels onto the table. “You see, when  _ the Master  _ couldn’t give them the  _ galaxies  _ they were owed--” she holds up an index finger and the Doctor bites a knuckle to silence himself before motioning for her to continue. “They arranged a  _ massive  _ feast, with the crowning event being, the  _ Master  _ would be sacrificed to appease their crab god. Thing is, though, I made a special sauce that caused it to get sick and  _ die,  _ though our dear old friend here,” she reached out with one hand to pinch the Nun’s cheek, “ _ unfortunately  _ was eaten and then…”

“I see,” the Doctor replies. “So, what happened afterwards?”

“The Monk put a telepathic lock on their ship, meaning it cannae be piloted without  _ them  _ in it, but  _ I  _ added myself to it, meaning  _ they  _ cannae go anywhere without  _ me---” _

“You’re stuck with one another,” the Doctor states. “So, why aren’t the pair of you off wreaking havoc throughout the universe?”

“She’s  _ hidden  _ my TARDIS!” the Nun explains, “and won’t tell me where it is!”

“That’s alright! We’ll get you a vortex manipulator!”

The Nun pales. “No! You know what they say--”

_ “Cheap and Nasty Time Travel,”  _ they say in unison, before laughing, remembering how often their instructors made them write that  _ exact  _ phrase, word for word, throughout every year in the Academy until they could recite it  _ backwards  _ in their sleep.

Missy reaches out, places her hand over the Doctor’s, and telepathically shows him his office desk with nothing out of place, only now a small snow globe sits on one corner of it. She meets his gaze.

He gives a subtle nod before rambling about the utility of a vortex manipulator.


End file.
